Edward G. Robinson

He was born Emanuel Goldenberg in Bucharest, Romania on Dec. 12, 1893, the fifth of six sons, but the family decided to emigrate to the U.S. to avoid the persecution that beset Jewish people there and across Europe. Emanuel made the crossing with his parents when he was nine, the family settling in the rough-and-tumble ghetto of the Lower East Side of New York. He attended PS 137 and Townsend Harris Hall High School, along the way excelling in his studies and becoming an ace semiotician, and earned a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. It was there he was advised to change his name to ease his way into professional acting, where ethnic names were frowned upon, and he became... Continue Bio >>